New York City Travel Forum

Will be visiting Jersey City, NJ for a few days in mid-June. I would like to go to the beach a couple days on the weekend. I've heard there is a good beach on the northeast shore of New Jersey - that looks toward Manhattan. Is anyone familiar with it (the name, etc.), or with other good beaches in the area?

You can do this very easily. Sandy Hook is the beach area you are thinking of, and from that point on south, the NJ shore has one nice beach after another, all the way down to Cape May.

If you do not have a car, you can take NJ Transit's North Jersey Coast Line to get to several beach towns: Asbury Park, Bradley Beach, Belmar, Spring Lake, etc.

I recommend Ocean Grove beach (right near Asbury Park but much much nicer town), Silver Lake is also nice. You may want to rent a car to hit the beach, it will be so much more convenient and sometimes you can get really good deals, especially from Jersey City. It will take you about an hour to an hour and half on the Garden State Parkway South from Jersey City to hit the beaches (heading south). The first area is Sandy Hook, which I would just skip. Prior to going figure out which beach you want to go to and seek out the exit. It's pretty easy to get to the beaches from the Garden State Parkway. If you are into driving for about two hours you can reach Sea Side Heights which has a nice boardwalk with rides, etc.